Bonde das Maravilhas

Meet the tween queens behind Brazil’s butt training meme.

I first heard about the Bonde Das Maravilhas (literally “Train of Wonders”) last year from a lady giving me a bikini wax in Copacabana Beach. When she found out I like funk music, she told me I had to check out this group of girls on YouTube her daughter wouldn’t stop talking about, called the Bonde Das Maravilhas.

This was January, 2012, and MC Boom’s Treinamento do BumBum (literally “Butt Training”) music video was starting to making the rounds on YouTube. But his view count paled in comparison to the butt-training meme it inspired. Search for “treinamento do bumbum” and you’ll find thousands of videos of girls doing the butt training dance.

One video stands above the rest. Thaysa, Thalia, Rafaela and Karol of the Bonde Das Maravilhas have an extra couple of zeros behind their view count. Why have almost five million people watched it? Is it the apathetic-chill dance vibe? The surreal effect of pixelated video resolution on concrete? The charm of the Maravilhas?

I had to meet these girls. So I found the Maravilhas on Facebook, and since they’re all still in high school, I got permission from their manager (and Rafaela’s mom) to interview them. On a rainy day last January, I took a ferry across Guanabara Bay to meet them in their home town of Niteroi, a city best known for being across the bay from Rio.

The Maravilhas in Niteroi, January 2012

Thaysa, Thalia, Rafaela and Karol were 13, 14, 15 and 16 when I interviewed them. A year later, they’ve seen half a dozen videos top the million view count on YouTube, they’ve started making music videos, they’re still crushing it dancing at local funk parties, and they’re all still underage.

Rather than listen to young women themselves, too many adults fixate on one of the great worries of our era: that girls are the victims of premature sexualization. The anxiety about sexualization ends up becoming the only lens through which well-meaning adults see teen girls and their clothes. That’s a huge mistake.

So let’s look at the Maravilhas through a second lens too: as they see themselves.

This video also features MC Nego. According to the Bonde Das Maravilhas documentary, MC Nego met the girls at the first show they ever danced, started inviting them out and helped their rise to internet fandom.